wry: [16] Wry means literally ‘twisted’ (many other English words beginning with wr-, such as wrist and writhe, share the same basic meaning). It comes from the now obsolete verb wry ‘deviate, twist’, which was descended from Old English wrīgian ‘turn, tend in a particular direction’. Wriggle [15] is probably related. => wriggle
wry (adj.)
1520s, "distorted, somewhat twisted to one side," from obsolete verb wry "to contort, to twist or turn," from Old English wrigian "to turn, bend, move, go," from Proto-Germanic *wrig- (cognates: Old Frisian wrigia "to bend," Middle Low German wrich "turned, twisted"), from PIE *wreik- "to turn" (cognates: Greek rhoikos "crooked," Lithuanian raisas "paralysed"), from root *wer- (3) "to turn, bend" (see versus). Of words, thoughts, etc., from 1590s. The original sense is preserved in awry.
